12 Ways your phone is changing you- #5 We feed on the produced

Intro

Good evening, welcome to Harvest Students. If you’re new here my name is Junior, I am the Assist Pastor of discipleship here at hbc, and i am excited that you have chosen to be here.

If you don’t have a bible one will be provided for you. Just raise your hands and one of our Leaders will get one to you.

12 ways your Phone is changing you

We are addicted to distraction

We ignore our own flesh and blood

We crave immediate approval

We lose our literacy

Today we get to our #5 reason.

We feed on the produced.

Close your eyes. Picture for a moment you’re on the the grenadine island of Mustique. Lush green trees, beautiful white sandy beaches, the clean aqua colored waters before you, cool temperature from the cool, clean, and fresh breeze blowing against your your face. What a paradise you think, “how did God put this together?” you wonder. But this experience no matter how well i can describe it can never be the same as actually experiencing it first hand.

Now

In the same way there is a certain distance between what we feed on with our phones and what we actually experience first hand.

One visual 2 options

A video can be presented to us with different aims.

First, it can be used to stir worship in us as we see the majesty of God’s natural glory re-mediated through human production. Or this same footage can be used to stir our love for a new product, such as an off-road Jeep. One interpretation amplifies the glory of God, while the other amplifies the craftiness of a corporate marketing   firm.

On the screens of our phones we only find copies of what exists in the world! E.g. celebrity incident

One Iconograph

When it was announced that megastar Johnny Depp and his fellow cast members would show up for a movie premiere in Boston, fans piled in tight against the makeshift metal fencing flanking the red carpet along a sidewalk leading up to a closed-off theater. As Depp and various other actors and actresses appeared on the red carpet, hundreds of cameras ignited. In a moment of genius and paradox, one seasoned Boston photographer turned his attention from the stars to the tightly packed crowd of onlookers and snapped a photograph that is an icon of our age. Why?

In the frame, I see forty-four onlookers tightly pressed together and at least thirty visible smartphones raised up in the air, cameras on. One middle-aged man in the front row fidgets with an app, no doubt trying to get his camera to work. Almost everyone else is ready for the moment, holding phones straight up as high as their arms will go to get the clearest possible picture or video of the procession. This means almost everyone in the picture is looking away from Depp, gazing upward into phones in a comical posture future generations will most certainly enjoy mocking. But foregrounded among the throng of raised smartphones stands one elderly woman, her arms leisurely folded across her chest and resting on the top railing of the barricade. She looks directly at the actors with a carefree repose and a small grin. She’s not trying to capture or share anything, not trying to grab a picture or moving frames to share online later. She is simply enjoying the moment.

[To her left stands a younger woman who holds her phone out to record the scene, but whose eyes are firmly fixed on the event before her, not on her screen. Unlike the others, she has the wherewithal to hold her phone, but also to enjoy the moment with her own eyes.]

Reinke, Tony. 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You (p. 92). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

Photography is a blessing, but if we impulsively turn to our camera apps too quickly, our minds can fail to capture the true moments and the rich details of an experience in exchange for 2 d memories. Point-and-shoot cameras may in fact be costing us our most vivid recollections. But until we are convinced of this, we will continue to impulsively reach for our phones in the event of the extraordinary (or less).

Photography is a blessing, but if we impulsively turn to our camera apps too quickly, our minds can fail to capture the true moments and the rich details of an experience in exchange for visually flattened memories. Point-and-shoot cameras may in fact be costing us our most vivid recollections. But until we are convinced of this, we will continue to impulsively reach for our phones in the event of the extraordinary (or less).

A video can be presented to us with different aims. First, it can be used to stir worship in us as we see the majesty of God’s natural glory re-mediated through human production. Or this same footage can be used to stir our love for a new product, such as an off-road Jeep. One interpretation amplifies the glory of God, while the other amplifies the craftiness of a corporate marketing   firm.

Illustration: some persons who exchange all D for 2 d.

Reinke, Tony. 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You (p. 98). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

When we chose to consume and fatten ourselves on what our phones and social media is offering us, like a quick pic with a popular person, we forget eternity. That one day (if we are christians) we will inherit the world and be more famous that jay z, beyonce, or any other celebrity.

Reinke, Tony. 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You (p. 97). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

That’s what sin does it lies about the future. Sin tells us that “if i don’t grab this chance at glory now, it will be lost forever.

So how do we break free from just constantly feeding on the produced?

1. Admit we are under attack -

We must humbly admit that we are targets of digital megacorporations that can make us into restless consumers with strategic intermediated content. The bible says:

1 Peter 5:8 ESV

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

While your phone is not evil, it can be used for evil. The devil’s plan is to get you away from listening to God, his word, the more consumed you are with everything else on your phone and nothing to do with God or what he has set up e.g. family, friends, caring for others etc.

Reinke, Tony. 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You (p. 99). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

2. We must learn to enjoy our present lives in faith -

enjoy each moment without feeling compelled to capture it.

3. We must celebrate.

We cannot suppress our souls’ appetite for what is awe-inspiring. The goal is not to mute all smartphone media but to feed ourselves on the right media. We were created to behold, see, taste, and delight in the richness of God’s glory— and that glory often comes refracted to us through skilled artists. Our insatiable appetite for viral videos, memes, and tweets is the product of an appetite for glory that God gave us. And he created a delicious world of media marvels so that we may delight in, embrace, and cherish anything that is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, or worthy of praise. 25 This will keep us very busy marveling at Scripture, at nature, and at God’s grace in the people he created.

Small Group:

Do my smartphone habits preoccupy me with the pursuit of worldly success?  

What will you do this week to help you do help you build a better relationship with God?

This would not be on the outline, but you need to get a response and take note of it. Are you a Christian? What does that mean?

Reinke, Tony. 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You (p. 100). Crossway. Kindle Edition.